MAY 89 



rang out with a happy peal. Everything was calling 

 fi Come and play; come and be happy;" and when the 

 whole world calls like that, who am I to stay at home 

 and work ? 



It was a day made for joy, and for the bush. There were 

 many things I might have done in town. There was the 

 procession, there was 1 the "Commem.," there was Hospital 

 Saturday, and football matches, and matinees, and a dozen 

 other things that are counted pleasure. But, on the other 

 hand, there was the bush, with its thousand joys, calling with 

 insistent voice and the bush won. 



The calendar tells us that May is the first of the winter 

 months, and according to all traditions the bush should now be 

 bare and silent. There is not certainly the wild luxuriance of 

 spring and summer, but the bush is far from bare ; the Port 

 Jackson wattle is in full bloom, and its pale cream balls and 

 glossy green leaves are just as beautiful in their way as the 

 more striking blooms of the golden spring flowers. Amongst 

 the rocks down near the river this wattle grows in great 

 soft masses against a background of sassafras and turpentine ; 

 out on the coast it grows less luxuriantly, but everywhere 

 about Sydney it is to be seen and smelt, for it is very sweet. 

 There are two other pale wattles going off now, but here and 

 there a branch of blossom remains to bear witness to the fact 

 that wattles do not all belong to spring. 



The grey rocks in the gully, which give such pleasure to 



